When Yue Fei, the national hero of the Anti-Jin Dynasty, was alive, he once wrote a famous poem "Manjiang Hong":
Furious hair rushing to the crown, by the railing, Xiao Xiao rain rest. Look up at the eyes, look up at the sky and scream, and be fierce. Thirty meritorious deeds of dust and earth, eight thousand miles of clouds and moons. Mo waited for idle, white teenager's head, empty and sad.
Jing Kang shame, Still Snow. When the courtiers hate, when to extinguish. Driving a long car is broken, and Helan Mountain is lacking. Zhuangzhi was hungry for meat and laughed about thirsting for The blood of the Huns. Wait to start from scratch, clean up the old mountains and rivers, and go to the sky.
The "Jing Kang Shame, Yu Wei Xue" in this poem is the hatred that Yue Fei felt when he was alive that he was "angry and rushed to the crown", and a blood "Jing Kang Shame" was the ideal and ambition he struggled for all his life.
Unfortunately, Yue Fei was killed by Emperor Gaozong of Song and Qin Jun, in his prime of thirty-nine years of age, leaving behind infinite regrets. However, the heroic spirit of Jingzhong Yue Fei was immortal, and continued to inspire the military and civilians of the Great Song Dynasty to go forward and succeed.
Swear to repay the "shame of Jingkang". The heavens had eyes, and 91 years after Yue Fei's death, his spirit in heaven finally saw this day. The person who led the Song army to realize this ideal was the famous Southern Song general Meng Jue.
Meng Jue (1195-1246 AD), courtesy name Puyu, was a native of Zaoyang, Suizhou (present-day Zaoyang, Hubei), and a famous general who resisted Jin and Mongolia. Meng Jue was born as a general, and his great-grandfather Meng An and grandfather Meng Lin were both Yue Fei's generals. Meng Jiazu defected to Yue Fei's "Yue Family Army" from Daizhou in Shanxi, and since then he has settled with the army in the area of Suizhou and Zaoyang (both in present-day Hubei).
His father, Meng Zongzheng, rose to prominence during the Kaixi Northern Expedition, granting the command of the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Jingxi and guarding Xiangyang. Meng Jue was the fourth son of Meng Zongzheng. From the time Meng Jue was a teenager, Meng Jue and the four brothers Meng Jing, Meng Zhang, and Meng Ying were taken in the army by Meng Zongzheng and followed their father to resist Jin. Meng Jue was born in a family of generals, and the training of his military career not only enabled him to practice good martial arts, but also cultivated a keen observation of the battlefield situation. These made him shine in the final battle of the future annihilation of Jin, the Battle of Caizhou.
In November 1233, mongolia and the Southern Song Dynasty reached an agreement to jointly extinguish the Jin Dynasty in Lin'an, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty. Meng Jue, who was then the deputy governor of Ezhou and Jiangling Prefecture in the Southern Song Dynasty, received orders from the imperial court to lead the Song army of 10,000 people and 300,000 stones of grain together with the Song Dynasty generals Jiang Hai and Xiu Wulang to assist the Mongol army in capturing Cai Prefecture (near present-day Cai Prefecture, Henan), the capital of the Jin Dynasty at that time.
Meng Jue and his party reached the front line and entered the south of Cai Prefecture (蔡州, in present-day Runan, Henan), where Meng Jue and other generals entered the Mongol military camp and met with the commander-in-chief of the Mongolian army and marshal Ta cha'er. The two sides celebrated together and agreed on a grand plan to attack Caizhou City.
Here it is necessary to introduce the background of the war at that time.
Both the Mongols and the Jin Dynasty were ethnic minorities in northern China. At the beginning, the Jin Dynasty was very powerful, and for a long time it pursued a cruel policy of national oppression against the Mongols, which made the two enemies of the world.
After Genghis Khan unified Mongolia, Genghis Khan built a very effective army, he decided to avenge the Jin Dynasty, and in 1211 AD, the Mongol War officially began.
After twenty-three years and the great Khans of Genghis Khan, Tuolei, and Wokoutai Khan, the Mongol army had wiped out nearly a million Jin troops and occupied most of the Jin dynasty's land, including the capital Zhongdu (near present-day Beijing).
The Jin Dynasty was forced to move the capital repeatedly, first from the capital of Zhongdu to Nanjing (present-day Kaifeng, Henan), and soon to Guide (present-day Shangqiunan, Henan), and not to Cai prefecture (present-day Runan, Henan). When Meng Jue and other Song troops arrived in Caizhou, the Mongolian army and the Jin army had been fighting fiercely under caizhou for several months.
At that time, both Mongolia and Jin were exhausted, and whoever could get the help of a third party would be able to win the Battle of Caizhou. The arrival of Meng Jue and other Song troops was the key moment of the bloody battle in Caizhou.
At this time, in caizhou city, the last emperor of the Jin dynasty, Jin Aizong, was temporarily recruiting soldiers to resist the enemy. Due to the many battles, and the siege of Caizhou by the Mongolian army for several months, the city suffered heavy damage, lack of grain and grass, and low morale. However, the trapped beast was still fighting, and Jin Aizong was still ready to fight to the death.
Two days later, Emperor Aizong of Jin ordered the Jin army to suddenly go out of the east gate to try to break out of the siege from the area guarded by the Song army, and was defeated by the Song army. After interrogating the captives, Meng Jue learned that there was already a shortage of grain in Caizhou City, and he decided that the Jin army was going to fight hard, and admonished the Song army: "Hold the position to the death and strictly prevent the Jin army from breaking through."
On the Mongolian side, Tacha'er sent the Mongolian general Zhang Rou to lead 5,000 elite soldiers to attack the city, but was resisted by the Jin army defending the city of Caizhou, and the Jin army fired all arrows in unison, and Zhang Rou himself was hit by several arrows and fell to the ground from a high place. In danger, thanks to Meng Jue, who led the Song Dynasty forward army to rush out, fought hard and saved Zhang Rou's life.
Early the next morning, the Song general Meng Jue led the Song army to capture chaitan lou, the commanding height of Caizhou, and after repeated battles, the Song army attacked the building and captured more than 500 enemy people. Meng Jue was the first soldier to dig the Chaitan embankment, put the pond water into the Ru River, fill the pond with firewood, and the Song army successfully crossed the pond and attacked the city. At the same time, the Mongol army also broke the Lianjiang River west of Caizhou City and approached the city.
Chaitan and Lianjiang are natural barriers outside the walls of Caizhou, in order to regain the natural danger, the Jin army guarding the city is anxious to red-eyed, and the Jin army guarding the city boils hot oil in a cauldron, which is used as a defensive weapon to pour down the Song and Mongolian soldiers. The fierce battle lasted until night, and General Jin sent another 500 death squads out of the west gate to sneak into the Song-Mongol joint army camp, but was discovered by the Mongolian army and shot most of them with crossbows.
The Combined Forces of the Mongols and Song Dynasties took advantage of the situation to attack Xicheng and capture xicheng towers. In the meantime, Jin Aizong also wanted to lead his troops to break through from Dongcheng overnight, but was blocked by the antler battle fence set up by the Mongol and Song armies and forced to return.
In the following days, the Song and Mongolian forces engaged in "psychological warfare" outside the city. Knowing that caizhou city lacked food and water, the Mongolian and Song coalition forces feasted outside the city, singing and dancing, and the soldiers cheered and drank, and ate delicious food. The Jin army guarding the city smelled the smell of meat and almost had a nervous breakdown.
Some Jin troops really could not bear the temptation, and surrendered from the city to the city, informing them that the grain in the city had been starved for three months, and that all they could eat had been eaten, and that the saddle boots and armor leather, including the snare drums and drum skins, were cooked and eaten, "listening to the old and the weak eating each other", and the daily grain of the golden army defending the city was "human and animal bones and celery paste". At the same time, in order to replenish the "military food", the Jin army often beheaded the entire team of its defeated army and "detained its flesh for food". Inside Caizhou City, it is simply another living hell.
At this time, Jin Aizong was already desperate for defending the city, and he said to his attendants: "I have been a doctor of Jin Ziguanglu for ten years, a prince for ten years, and an emperor for ten years, and I know that there is no major evil, and I have no hatred in death." The ancestors I hate have been passed down for more than a hundred years, until I have stopped, and I am the lord of the country with the absurd tyrants since ancient times, but this point makes me grumble... Since ancient times, there has been no immortal state, and the kings of the fallen countries have often been humiliated by people, or bound and sacrificed, or humiliated on their knees in the palace, or closed in empty houses. It definitely won't get to this point! All the love of the secretary of state, you look at it, and you are determined!"
He summoned hundreds of officials and decided to pass the throne to the Eastern Yuanshi Guanyan Chenglin. After Yan Chenglin initially insisted on pushing back, Emperor Aizong pleaded bitterly, saying: "It is also a last resort to entrust Jiangshan Sheji to you. He was obese and could not go out on horseback. In case the city falls, it will be difficult to break through. Considering that you used to be physically fit, and you have a general's strategy, if the state is lucky enough to escape, you can continue the national zuo, this is the intention of yuan. Yan Chenglin could only agree to succeed to the throne.
On February 9, 1234, the Combined Forces of Song and Mongolia ordered a general offensive against the city of Caizhou. The Song army was in the south of Caizhou City, and the Mongolian army was in the west of the city, and together they entered the city and engaged in fierce street battles with the Jin army, killing on all sides. The generals of the Jin Army stubbornly resisted, and almost all of them were killed in battle or martyred by suicide. Jin Aizong did not want to be a prisoner, so he hanged himself at the age of 37. Yan Chenglin of the Eastern Yuan Division soon died in the rebellion. After the chancellor finished the last of the more than a thousand Jin soldiers to fight in the alley, he learned the news that Jin Aizong had hanged himself, and also jumped into the water to commit suicide. The remaining more than 500 jin army generals, from the suffragists, the chief division, the Yuan division, down to the soldiers, all jumped into Rushui and committed suicide.
At this point, the Jin Dynasty died under the combined forces of the Southern Song Dynasty and Mongolia in the 120th year of the founding of the Jin Dynasty.
The Southern Song Dynasty finally 107 years after the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty (1127 AD), under the bloody struggle of Meng Jue and other generals and the Mongol army, they repaid the deep hatred for the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty, and also fulfilled the long-cherished wishes of Yue Fei and other predecessors, and gave Yue Fei's spirit in heaven the blood of "the shame of Jingkang".